Garcia-Perez, M., T. Lewis, C. Kruger. 2011. Funding for this study is provided by the Washington State Department of Ecology with the intention to address the growing demand for information on the design of advanced pyrolysis units. This is the first of a series of reports exploring the use of biomass thermochemical conversion technologies to sequester carbon and to produce fuels and chemicals.

Recorded webinar (online presentation) from June 1st, 2011 by Manuel Garcia-Perez, PhD; Assistant Professor, Biological Systems Engineering. The reactors used for biomass pyrolysis can be classified into slow and fast pyrolysis. While slow pyrolysis reactors are mainly used to produce charcoal, fast pyrolysis is the technology of choice to maximize bio-oil yields. Yields as high as 80 wt can be obtained with this technology. During the webinar historical developments and potential of pyrolysis technologies for the production of bio-char, advanced fuels and high value chemicals are discussed.

Professor Garcia-Perez is an expert in thermo-chemical engineering of biomass into energy and products. Our work with Garcia-Perez includes the development and evaluation of biochar from the pyrolysis of woody organic wastes as a potential soil amendment.

David Granatstein, Chad Kruger, Hal Collins, Manuel Garcia-Perez, and Jonathan Yoder, September 2009. Biochars from different feedstocks were tested on five soils. Biochars on all soil types increased soil C. Biochar C was stable in soil with mean residence times estimated in the hundreds of years. Soil nitrate levels were reduced with increasing biochar rate perhaps due to ammonium adsorption. Biochar did not accelerate loss of indigenous organic matter through the ‘priming effect.′ Biochars raised soil pH, but did not lead to consistent plant growth improvements.

Manuel Garcia-Perez, Shulin Chen, Shuai Zhou,Zhouhong Wang, Jieni Lian, Robert Lee Johnson, Shi-Shen Liaw and Oisik Das, September 2009. This project tested a new pretreatment concept to enhance the production of sugars from the fast pyrolysis of wood and straw. It proved that sugars recovered from pyrolysis can be easily converted into ethanol. These two results are important because they show that fast pyrolysis of wood or straw followed by bio-oil hydro-treatment can create green gasoline and diesel (from lignin), as well as ethanol (from cellulose).

Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development, Institute forWashington′s Future, and Northwest Cooperative Development Center, September 2009. New technologies allow us to harness the energy in animal and plant biomass to generate electricity and fuel vehicles. The energy derived biomass resources that are produced and harvested sustainably is considered renewable. This report is a primer on biomass power for Clallam County and funding opportunities.

Manuel Garcia-Perez, June 2008. It is clear that any new thermochemical processing technologies must represent clean processes. To examine whether the production of bio-oils and biochar could generate PAH and dioxins during pyrolysis processes, a global literature review was conducted. Processing method for recovering energy, fuel and products from organic waste can have detrimental impacts such as odors and emissions from compost yards. This report also contains laboratory data on PAH and dioxins within biochar and bio-oil produced at the laboratory.